I actually interviewed for this last year – didn’t make the cut, as you might surmise from my presence on FCC…maybe I wasn’t minority enough, maybe I was too old, maybe others were just too good, or maybe I was too good and determined to be not in need of their help – too bad but they never tell ya…all these scholarships emphasize that they’re looking for women and minorities (I’d also unsuccessfully applied to Per Scholas, which works in conjunction with General Assembly; NYC Code + Design Academy; and the Flatiron School) – makes 'em look good to their funders, you know, Google and such, due to the alleged racial/etc. “tech gap” (I mean yeah they exist but it’s not like anyone’s deliberately keeping anyone out).

Anyway, at least a fifth of the curricula of these places often consists of very basic how-to-get-a-job stuff like “dress for success!” and “attitude determines altitude!” – again, to make for happy stats for happy funders.

I’ve learned a lot simply from applying, though, so I encourage everyone to give it a shot if possible; it’s interesting to see all the different ways of screening involved, all the different “predictive design philosophies” as well as all the similarities…for instance, they all involve some kind of formal examination, though it can range from the conventional such as the traditional TABE that Per Scholas uses on every hopeful to the puzzle-solving face-to-face coding-interview-like process at C4Q’s Access Code program.

I’m actually a bit grateful to be forced to undertake self-paced self-study online, believe it or not – I believe my know-how will be deeper and even broader than what even a ten-month program like Access Code (the longest by far that I’m aware of that’s free) can help develop.